Political Wisdom: Does Santorum’s Sweep Spell Trouble for Romney?

Rick Santorumscored a major victory Tuesday night, winning in the swing states of Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado in the GOP’s first multi-state voting, and putting the brakes on front-runner Mitt Romney’s ride to the GOP nomination.

The bigger story is what amounts to a meltdown for Romney, who would like us all to believe that he’s the candidate of inevitability. But the inevitable candidate isn’t supposed to get crushed by 30 points, as Romney did in Missouri. And he’s not supposed to finish a very distant third, 10 points behind Ron Paul, as he did in Minnesota. And he’s certainly not supposed to let a candidate like Rick Santorum, who before tonight had barely been relevant since the Iowa caucuses, post the clean sweep Santorum just did. …

The results underscore the widespread reluctance to get behind Romney that continues to exist among the GOP base. Romney’s campaign can write off Missouri because of the unusual circumstances there and argue they didn’t focus much energy or money on Minnesota, but that only points to the degree to which Romney’s nomination strategy depends on attacking his rivals and overwhelming them financially.

February was supposed to be a cruise control month for Romney – a series of effortless, momentum-building victories that would marginalize his opponents and lead to one emphatic, nomination-sealing sweep on Super Tuesday. Instead, he now faces a real challenge just to make it through the rest of the month, which will include contests in Michigan and Arizona, without any more embarrassments. And the prospect of further setbacks in early March, when Ohio and several Southern states that are culturally ill-suited to Romney will vote, now seems likely.

He has failed to close the deal with conservatives, who dominate the Republican party more than they did in 2008. Romney drew the ire of conservative icons Steve Forbes and Dick Armey this week when he endorsed inflation-indexed minimum-wage increases — something every free-market economist worth his chops knows would make it harder for people to get entry-level jobs. …

Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to realize he is campaigning for two jobs, not one. He is doing quite well in the race to become the Republican nominee for president, and must still be considered the strong favorite. But ever since Barry Goldwater captured the GOP nomination in 1964, the Republican nominee has been more or less the titular head of the conservative movement, the most important single component of the Republican party. It is that race that Romney is doing so poorly in, as evidenced by the willingness of many conservatives to vote against him.

Romney would help himself and his party if he realized that he will have a much higher chance of winning the general election if he reaches out to conservatives and convinces them to be enthusiastic. It’s one thing to win the vote of every anti-Obama voter in the country, but on his current trajectory Romney will fail to convince many of them to make that extra effort to get their friends and neighbors to the polls. That could ultimately mean the difference between victory and defeat — and for now Romney seems oblivious to that fact.

Mr. Romney’s campaign failed to make much of an effort in the contests. He did not make many personal appearances in the states, nor did he run a significant amount of advertising. And his campaign worked to diminish expectations in the day or two before the voting — a practice that can annoy voters who are undecided in the race if they feel like they are being told their vote doesn’t matter.

Why Mr. Romney’s campaign made these decisions is hard to say. One of the advantages of having a resource-rich campaign, as Mr. Romney does, is precisely that you are able to leave less to chance. Mr. Romney would have had the luxury of running commercials in Colorado or Minnesota, or of establishing a set of field offices in those states. Instead, his strategy was complacent. He gambled and paid the price, as Hillary Rodham Clinton did in the caucus states in 2008.

Fortunately for Mr. Romney, none of his rivals are in the same ballpark as Mrs. Clinton’s opponent, Barack Obama, as measured by metrics like fundraising, organizational strength, or oratorical skill. But Mr. Romney is not a strong enough candidate that he can afford more nights as bad as Tuesday.

It is the combination of three losses, that few had foreseen, which makes the past twenty-four hours the most significant day in the campaign so far. Colorado, which neighbours Utah with its huge Mormon population, had gone to Romney with more than 60% of the caucus votes in 2008 and it was almost inconceivable that he would struggle. As it was, he secured less than 35% of the votes even though he had built the biggest ground operation of any of the contenders.

A big problem from all of this is that it undermines two key elements that were part of the overall Romney proposition: that his nomination was inevitable, and that he was the “most electable” of the contenders. A vote share down to 17% in one of the states hardly suggests electability.

A bigger challenge for him is that a new narrative is developing: one that suggests the only way Mitt Romney can win is by bombarding his opponents with negative advertisements.

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Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.